


with my life

by okaynextcrisis



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 12:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11207676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaynextcrisis/pseuds/okaynextcrisis
Summary: a collection of quitahl au minifics





	1. doctor/patient au

“It looks worse than it is” isn’t the best opening line ever employed by Qui-Gon Jinn in the presence of a beautiful woman, but it’s four in the morning and the last of the whiskey is blurring the exam room and maybe it’s the blood loss, but he can swear the doctor is glowing.  

She tilts her head, the motion loosening a dreadlock from the knot on top of her head.  She tucks it absently behind her ear with the pencil from her clipboard, her delicate eyebrows lifting.  "It’s a gunshot wound.”

Seated cross-legged on the exam table before her unwavering gaze, they are almost level; if he were standing, they would be nearly the same height.  

He blinks, trying to bring the white room into focus.  He is positive she introduced herself when she came in the room, just moments ago, but the edges of his vision are exploding into bright lights…

“I prefer to think of it more as a gunshot experience,” he amends, his attempt at a smile somewhat marred by his visible wince as she prods his shoulder experimentally with the tip of one gloved finger.  "Did you say what your name is?“

Smooth amber skin furrows between her brows.  "I did.  Not even two minutes ago.  Should I test you for a head injury?”

Qui-Gon shrugs, one-armed, mindful of the bullet wedged in his shoulder.  "It’s probably the Jack,“ he says, reaching–carefully–into his boot for his flask.  He raises it to his lips.  It won’t really help the pain, but, he figures, it can’t hurt, either.  

He lowers the flask to find the doctor waiting, white-coated arms crossed. “If you’re quite finished, I’d like to remove that bullet now.”

Qui-Gon gestures loosely at his shoulder with his other hand…still soaked in half-dried blood, he notices belatedly.  "Have at it.“

“A nurse will be in to prep you for surgery shortly–”

The room is spinning faster now.  Maybe…maybe he’d like to lie down, just for a minute.  He lets himself fall back onto the exam table; it’s worse on his shoulder, but the colors around his peripheral vision abate.  ”Surgery?“ he repeats.  

The doctor moves into his field of vision, her lips quirking.  "I’m afraid I can’t just pop the bullet out with my magical powers,” she says.  "But I wouldn’t worry too much, I take out three of these a week.“

“You need a new job,” Qui-Gon reflects.  

“Perhaps we could both stand to make some changes in our lives,” she says dryly.  "But before Bant can start prepping you, I have to inform you that the hospital is legally required to report all gunshot injuries to the police.  When you wake up, you’ll have to answer some questions.“

Qui-Gon flaps his good hand dismissively.  "I won’t be pressing charges.  It was a simple misunderstanding.”

A misunderstanding involving a poker game, a fifth queen, and a friend of a friend who goes by the name of Jar Jar.  That, Qui-Gon reflects, should perhaps have been a sign of his dubious judgement, but then plenty of people’s poor choices have not extended to shooting him, and hindsight is always twenty twenty.  

“They always are,” she says philosophically.  "But that’s your problem, not mine.  My problem is getting that bullet out of you and you out of my hospital.“

He mock-salutes.  "See you on the other side.”

Her smile is rueful.  "Between the Jack, the anesthesia, and the painkillers you’ll get in the drip, you won’t remember a moment of this, I promise you.“

"Wanna bet?”

“Mr. Jinn,” she says, peeling off her gloves and tossing them neatly into the trash by the door, “you survived a gunshot wound tonight.  You still have to get through surgery and a police interview. Let’s not press your luck.”

But as she moves on to book an OR and send a nurse in, leaving him staring at the ceiling, Qui-Gon can’t help hoping she’s wrong, just a little.  

There might be something in tonight worth remembering, after all.  


	2. foster home au

Ahsoka slapped a ratty spiral notebook inked with bright hearts and twisting vines down on the crowded kitchen counter, narrowly missing the oversize pan of chopped carrots and snow peas frying in hot oil on the stove.  "I need help with my science homework,“ she announced.

Qui-Gon, who had grown up in this house since the age of seven and co-run it for fifteen years as an adult, including the Great Detergent Incident of 2013, pulled the pan out of harm’s way without blinking.  "Ask Tahl.”

“She said she didn’t know.”  Ahsoka pulled on her pigtail, twisting it innocently around a finger.  "She said she needed your help.“

“Tahl has never in her life used the words _I don’t know_ ,” Qui-Gon said calmly over the sizzle of the oil and the sounds of Quinlan rhythmically smacking a tennis ball against the ceiling in the next room.  "I’m not sure she thinks there _is_ anything she doesn’t know.“

"I heard that,” a dry voice called from upstairs.

Ahsoka widened horrified blue eyes. “How does she do that?” she whispered.

Qui-Gon had been twelve and sharing an upstairs bedroom with three other boys the year Tahl had been placed in this house.  She’d been eleven then, in the foster system for four years.  The scar on her face had faded in the years since, the white line curving down her cheek no longer so stark against the golden brown of her skin, but her jackrabbit reflexes and heightened awareness of her surroundings had never dimmed.

“She’s magic,” he told Ahsoka.

Obi-Wan padded into the kitchen, face in a wrinkled paperback that Qui-Gon was fairly sure had been sitting dusty and forgotten on the bookshelf in the hall since before he himself had moved in.  "Tahl says she needs your help with the taxes.“

Qui-Gon took a moment to taste the sauce, bubbling on a back burner; _more ginger_ , he decided.

"The last time I ‘helped’ with the taxes,” Qui-Gon replied placidly, “Tahl threatened to run me through with a stapler if I ever came within five feet of her withholding forms again.”

Obi-Wan lifted his eyes from his book, gracing Qui-Gon with the kind of bright smile that would have brought hope to a dying man.  "I guess I was wrong.“

The year he and Tahl took over this house, Qui-Gon might have made the mistake of demanding to know what was wrong with everyone tonight.  By now, Qui-Gon had rigorously honed a sort of zen bemusement regarding what his kids were thinking.

A sudden _thwap_ , followed by a crash, and then an unpleasant crunching sound, came from upstairs.

"Qui-Gon, I need you,” Tahl’s resigned voice called.  "Anakin, inevitably, just brought down a ceiling fan…“

As he made for the stairs at a run, Qui-Gon pretended he didn’t hear the muffled giggles and high-fives behind him.


	3. actor/talk show host au

“…my first guest tonight was _going_ to be director Mace Windu, to talk about this summer’s blockbuster hit, _This Party’s Over_ , but unfortunately–”

The crowd’s enthusiastic applause gives way to a collective groan of disappointment.  Backstage, waiting impatiently behind the thick velvet curtains separating real life from performance, Tahl can’t see Qui-Gon’s face, but she can picture perfectly the tiny creases that always form around his cornflower blue eyes when he tries to convince someone (usually her) that the bad news isn’t as bad as, in fact, it is.

“—Mace’s plane got grounded by a sandstorm at a filming location he specifically asked me not to mention by name—”

From the raucous laughter that erupts after the small pause following this statement, Tahl guesses that Qui-Gon has mouthed the name of the aforementioned secret location to the audience.  She makes a mental note to start preparing his eulogy on the ride back to her hotel; he is a dead man.  Tahl knows Mace Windu by reputation only, and what she knows is this: he is the most gifted big-budget director in Hollywood, and he has absolutely no sense of humor at all.  

“…but fortunately for all of us, we have a special treat tonight: one of my oldest friends, a Tony-Nominated actress, just off a three-year run on Broadway, and the most talented person I know: Tahl Uvain!”

The applause that greets her as she makes her way across the floor (smiling brightly, silently chanting _don’t slip don’t slip,_ the repetition of the words like a mental rosary) is tepid…or perhaps it only feels that way to her.  Back in New York, back on a _real_ stage, her smile wouldn’t be so forced; in Los Angeles, even after all her success, she still feels a little uninvited, out of context.  

And then Qui-Gon is there, closing the distance between them in two long strides.  His welcoming smile is familiar, the crooked grin she remembers from blocking scenes together in drama school, his large hands warm on her bare arms, and she remembers that at least one person in this room wants her here.

And she knew he’d like the dress.

“Don’t you think you’re laying it on a little thick?” she whispers in his ear as she lets him kiss her cheek, the words too soft to be picked by her body mic over the sound of the intro music.

She hopes the sound of her heartbeat, picking up at the touch of his lips, won’t be overheard, either.  

“Don’t panic,” he whispers back, his eyes knowing.  She loathes doing television, and she can’t believe she’s just remembering it now.  She can’t believe she spent the morning trying out for the privilege of doing a _series_ , of all things.  “We don’t air until after midnight.  No one is really watching.  It’s just you and me.”

It’s not true; Qui-Gon had been a rising star in the comedy world long before being tapped to take over the Late Late Show upon his predecessor Craig Ferguson’s retirement, and in addition to the audience physically present, there are millions of people watching at home.  But she is touched by the effort.

“I always suspected I was your entire audience,” she murmurs instead, and he laughs, as she’d known he would.

Sometimes, when she watches the show back at her apartment in New York, he’ll make a joke, and she’ll be positive it was meant just for her, because he knew it would make her laugh.

He leads her over to the guest chair, and sits down behind his desk.  All those years ago in London (her agent specifically asked her not to mention on camera how many) at the Central School of Speech and Drama, sharing cigarettes and complaints about their ridiculous assignments, she could never have guessed that they’d wind up here.  

She sinks down into the leather carefully, crossing her legs with the kind of carefully executed precision usually reserved for military engagements.  

Qui-Gon laces his hands together, not even bothering to contain his glee.  It’s wonderful to see him this way, so easy and comfortable, so totally in his element.  

“It’s so good to finally have you here.  I’ve wanted to have you on the show since our very first episode, but with you in New York doing nine shows a week it never worked out.“

“That’s the good thing about being unemployed,” she says dryly.  "It opens up your day.”

It’s only been six weeks since her last performance, and already she is bored nearly to tears.  She wouldn’t usually have considered the script that brought her out here today, but with no other projects on the horizon…

“What’s it like not being the Wicked Witch of the West anymore?” Qui-Gon asks, and not just for the audience.  

The truth: she misses Elphaba every day, like an ache in a phantom limb, and some days she can’t believe she made the choice to move on.

The PR answer: it was the role of a lifetime, and she’ll be grateful for it forever, but it was time for new challenges.  

“I have it on good authority I was the Wicked Witch long before _Wicked_ ,” she says instead, to laughter.  

Qui-Gon smiles.  Even like this, even on camera, it’s good to see him again.  When was the last time he made it out to New York…two years?  Three?

“So what brings you out to LA?” he prompts.  He knows, of course—if she hadn’t texted that she was going to be in town, he wouldn’t have shoehorned her on the show, and she wouldn’t be here—but she plays along.

“Broomstick,” she says, and the audience laughs some more.  “No, I had an audition this morning.”

“Tell as all about it,” he invites, leaning closer, the way he would if this really were a conversation, if it really were just the two of them.

The audition went fine…or as well as these things ever do.  It’s a decent part, and a good script.  She could do something with it, something she could be proud of, even in this wasteland of ratings and reality programming.  The casting director had seemed to like her…but then they always do.

She’s still not sure if she’s hoping to get the part, or hoping to get to go home.

“Absolutely not,” she answers, crossing her arms for dramatic effect.  “A, actresses are superstitious, and B,” she glances at the audience, including them in the conversation, “if I don’t get it, in a year I will have forgotten all about it, and _you_ will still be mad.”  

She affects his lilting tone.  “‘I can’t believe they went in another direction for the lead in _Death of a Salesman_.  Bloody idiots.’”

“I’m sure you’d find unexplored depths in the part of Willy Loman,” Qui-Gon insists, over laughter.

“I’m sure I would, too,” she agrees dryly, to more laughter.

“If you get the part—knock on wood,” Qui-Gon says quickly, tapping his fist against the fake wood veneer of his desk, “you’ll be moving out here, won’t you?  I thought you said you’d rather die than have a Hollywood zip code.”

She smiles, leaning forward.  Hollywood she might hate, but Qui-Gon Jinn she can handle.  “Then I guess you’ll have to work pretty hard to change my mind, won’t you?”

Over the sound of strangers hooting, under the hot lights, despite the practiced gestures of a producer counting them down to the commercial break…it really is just the two of them again, and suddenly live TV—and this dreadful town—aren’t so bad anymore.  

He lifts her hand to his lips.  “I’ll do my best,” he promises.


	4. dance partners au

No one at Yoda’s School of Ballroom Dancing outright told her to partner with Qui-Gon Jinn, but at six foot two, Tahl had long ago made her peace with towering over even the tallest men in her class; at six four, Qui-Gon made a welcome change.

She held out her hand; it was easier that way. “Tahl,” she said. “Qui-Gon, right?”

He was silent; nodding, she guessed.

The music began, something soft with strings, and she felt the warmth of his body as he moved closer to her, and then the light pressure of large, calloused hands against the small of her back.

He cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind my asking–”

Two years ago, Tahl would have. Now, it was another obstacle over which she’d won a hard-fought acceptance.

“Car accident,” she answered. “Both eyes. Nothing to be done.”

“No, I meant…” His deep voice lilted, hesitating. “Why ballroom dancing?”

She shrugged, his body swaying with hers as he eased her backwards into a dip. “Why not?”


	5. high school teachers au

There were a few things that could be counted on at Temple High: that the food served in the cafeteria would be an unidentifiable slop, no matter what lofty items were listed on the menu; that Principal Yoda’s speeches at assemblies would be short, but entertaining; and that Mr. Jinn, the lit teacher, would flirt shamelessly with Ms. Uvain whenever he was within six feet of her library.  

He leaned across the counter of the circulation desk, heedless of the thirty or so juniors of the Shakespeare class whose research he was supposedly supervising, his elbows resting on the stacks of books she was trying to check in.  "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.“

Ms. Uvain’s knowing green eyes took in both the enraptured smile stretching across Mr. Jinn’s proud features and their riveted audience.  She leaned closer, the new, shorter strands of her dark hair brushing her shoulders, lowering her voice so Mr. Jinn had to lean in, too.  "Does that mean you like my hair?  Or are you going to tell me that love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind?”

Mr. Jinn’s smile widened, his blue eyes holding something akin to ecstasy.  There was a pool among Temple’s students (and secretly, more than a few of its teachers) as to when and if their lovestruck literature teacher would ask out the librarian, who was, according to consensus, clearly out of his league, but just as obviously interested.  Those with bets concerning this month and this library waited, breath held, nudging anyone too wrapped up in their research to notice the show, or sending exclamation-point laden texts to those unlucky enough to be in another class that _it’s happening, it’s happening, it’s HAPPENING–_

Mr. Jinn’s smile turned regretful.  "Parting is such sweet sorrow,“ he sighed, pulling away from the desk to make his rounds through his students.  

Calmly, Ms. Uvain went back to her reshelving.

And as one, Temple High sighed in frustration, thwarted one again by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  Ms. Uvain was going to find someone else, and Mr. Jinn was going to die alone, and the fault, as Satine Kryze had pointed out in an earlier Instagram post, would lie not in his stars, but in himself.  

It was too bad, really, that they didn’t know that the objects of their scrutiny had been an item for nearly a year.  


	6. single parent au

Tahl sighed, her slim fingers falling silent on the keyboard. “What did you do now?”

Qui-Gon’s eyes jerked up from the order form spread on the desk in front of him.  "What makes you think I did something?“ he asked, irate.

Tahl waved a hand. “Obi-Wan is devastatingly civil, you’re both addressing yourselves only do me, and you’ve put in the same order three times.”

Ruefully, Qui-Gon dropped the form, passing a hand over his face. In this moment, he wasn’t sure which he regretted more: the fight with his son last night, or the decision twelve years ago to start an organic vegan ice cream company with his childhood friend.

“We may have had a slight…hiccup,” he allowed.

Tahl snorted. “Good,” she said. “Now go apologize, and then we’ll start fixing the almond milk order.”

“Why do I have to–”

“Because you’re the grown-up,” Tahl informed him without mercy, her eyes already sliding down the accounts payable register.

“Who put you in charge?” he muttered.

“We were five, and I was seven months older and always knew better,” Tahl informed him placidly, just a hair shy of an unseemly smugness.

Somehow, as was always the case with Tahl, Qui-Gon didn’t seem to have an argument.

“Are you coming to dinner?” he asked instead.

“I have a date,” she replied without looking up.

There it was. Qui-Gon’s sigh was silent and poignant. 

He got to his feet heavily to go in search of Obi-Wan, tucked away somewhere in a quiet corner in the office, sulking, probably, icily finishing his homework.

Maybe, if Tahl could help him make up with Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan could help him get Tahl to finally say yes.


	7. rival spies au

Deftly, Tahl swipes a flute of champagne off a waiter’s silver tray, the motion as hushed and seamless as every other act she has committed here tonight.  The stolen codes: back in her government’s hands.  The bug: planted soundly in the ambassador’s bedroom.  The fire started by the enemy operative, to try to stop her: neatly doused, with no one the wiser.

She shouldn’t linger, but the bubbles in her glass match the ferocious pride in her chest, and it’s been such a good night.

Their eyes meet across the embassy ballroom, across a hundred oblivious politicians, talking and promising and prevaricating wildly, utterly ignorant to the real business taking place here tonight, the backbone of all that careful diplomacy.

He lifts his glass to her, his fierce blue eyes rueful, before he turns and disappears into the crowd.

Until next time.


End file.
